"I'll give you threepence if you'll give me half your dinner."
"I don't want your threepence," he said scornfully. "You shall have
half if you give me half your new bread and cheese. Ourn's allus stale.
Look, here's some cold apple puff too."
So there was, and delicious it looked, sufficiently so to make my mouth
water.
"Got a knife, matey?"
"Yes," I said, "but--"
"I say, I tell you what," said my would-be host. "Have you really got
threepence?"
"Yes," I said, and was about to say more, when Mr Rowle's words
occurred to me and I was silent.
"Then we'll have half a pint o' cider at the next lock, and twopen'orth
o' apples, shall us?"
"Yes," I said, delighted at the prospect; and the result was that we two
hearty boys soon finished pudding, puff, and the last scrap of the bread
and cheese, after which my new friend shouted, "Mother!" The boat was
steered in close, and the shrill-voiced woman took the basket back.
"Is your name Jack?" I said, as I descended, and we trudged on together
slowly beside the horses, each of which was now furnished with a tin
bucket hung from the top of its head, and containing some beans and
chaff.
"Yes; what's yourn?"
"Antony."
"Ho!"
There was silence after this, for we came up to another lock, close by
which was a little public-house, where Jack was sent to get a stone
bottle filled with beer, and up to whose door he summoned me, and we
partook of our half-pint of cider, Jack proving most honourable as to
his ideas of half.
Then the beer having been passed on board, Jack's mother and father
taking not the slightest notice of me, the barge was passed through the
lock, and Jack beckoned and waved his hand.
"You give me the twopence, and I'll buy," he said. "If we ask Mother
Burke for twopen'orth all at once she won't give us more than she would
for a penny. Stop a moment," he said, "you only give me a penny, and
we'll keep t'other for to-morrow."
I handed a penny to him, and we went into the lock cottage, in whose
lattice window were displayed two bottles of ginger-beer, a couple of
glasses of sugar-sticks, and a pile of apples.
Our penny in that out-of-the-way place bought us a dozen good apples,
and these we munched behind the horses as we trudged on slowly, mile
after mile.
I did not feel tired now, and we boys found so much to talk about that
the time went rapidly by. Jack's father and mother did not trouble
themselves about my being there, but towards six o'clock handed the boy
out his tea in a bottle, whose neck stuck out of the basket that had
held his dinner, and in which were some half a dozen slices of bread and
butter.
"'Tain't full," said Jack, holding the bottle up to the light; "she
might ha' filled it. There is more brem-butter. Never mind, I'll fill
it up with water. You won't mind?"
"No," I said; but as a lock was then coming in sight, and a
decent-looking village, an idea occurred to me. "Let's buy a pen'orth
of milk and put to it," I said.
Jack's eyes sparkled, and hanging the basket _pro tem._ on the hames, he
cracked his whip, and we proceeded a little more quickly towards the
lock, where I bought a twopenny loaf and some milk for our tea. I say
_ours_, for Jack literally shared his with me.
"Where are you going to sleep?" said Jack to me at last, as the evening
mists were beginning to rise on the meadows.
"I don't know," I said rather dolefully, for the idea had not occurred
to me before.
"Come and bunk along o' me."
"Where?" I asked.
"Under the tarpaulin in front o' the barge," he said; "I allus sleeps
there now, cos father says my legs gets in the way in the cabin."
"But would your father mind?"
"Not he. He'll go ashore as soon as we make fast for the night and lets
the horses loose to feed. He wouldn't mind."
And so it turned out, for the barge was made fast to a couple of stout
posts in a wider part of the canal, close to a lock where there was a
public-house. The horses were turned out to graze on the thick grass
beside the tow-path, and after a little hesitation I took my bundle and
shoes and crept in beneath a tarpaulin raised up in the middle to make
quite a tent, which Jack had contrived in the fore port of the barge.
"Ain't it jolly and snug?" he cried.
"Ye-es," I replied.
"On'y it won't do to stop in when the sun gets on it, 'cos it's so hot
and sticky. I like it. Feyther can't kick you here."
This was a revelation. I had been thinking Jack's life must be one of
perfect bliss.
"Does your father kick you, then?"
"Not now. He used to when he came home after being to the public, when
he was cross; but he didn't mean nothing. Feyther's werry fond o' me.
I wouldn't go back to sleep in the cabin now for no money."
Jack's conversation suddenly stopped, and I knew by his hard breathing
that he was asleep: but I lay awake for some time, peering out through a
little hole left by the tarpaulin folds at the stars, thinking of Mr
Blakeford and his pursuit; of what Mary would say when she read my
letter; and from time to time I changed the position of my bundle, to
try and turn it into a comfortable pillow; but, try how I would, it
seemed as if the heel of one or other of my shoes insisted upon getting
under my ear, and I dropped asleep at last, dreaming that they were
walking all over my head.